March Madness and April Fools

It has happened once again.  I've let my poor little blog become so neglected that I hardly know where to begin to catch up.  So hold on, here come just a few highlights from the month of March.

Andy played the part of the tour guide in the fourth grade production of "Heros of the Faith."  Rosie thought he was spectacular and even tried to sing along with his solo.

She's kind of become his class mascot.  Andy's the only one in his class with a baby brother or sister and they all go nuts for her.  She loves the attention (and so does he).

Zadie made her theatrical debut as a sassy gypsy moth in the Kindergarten production of "Going Buggy."  Miss Bibi really knows my girl; she got to wear lots of fabulous sparkles and only had to say two lines.  It was a part made just for her.

And I know this picture didn't come out very well, but here is Zadie with her best friend Cullen (playing the part of an army ant).  Cullen has definitely been a highlight of her Kindergarten year.

We made two beach trips in March.  After this long cold winter, we just can't get enough of the Florida sunshine.  Oh, and it doesn't hurt that we have amazing friends waiting for us whenever we roll into town.  Here are the girls with their precious friend Harper.

And I can't talk about March without mentioning the amazing breakthroughs Rosie is having with her speech.  She's been seeing her therapist regularly and has made so much progress that friends who haven't seen her in a few weeks can't believe their ears.  She still has a long way to go to catch up to where she should be, but she talks to us all day long!  Sometimes she looks at me like I'm crazy because I just can't stop laughing.  I've been waiting almost 3 years to hear her beautiful voice and it fills my heart with an unspeakable joy.  Oh, and she's totally funny, too.  What a sense of humor she's been hiding!

Here is a picture of her before her big speech test at the elementary school.  She's made so much progress that she doesn't even qualify for assistance with her expressive language after she turns three!  She will be getting help with articulation, though, so the speech therapy will continue (thank goodness).  

Okay, back to beach pictures...

It was a little cold for a swim, so we hit the playgrounds and a high ropes course.

You can guess that Zadie wasn't heading up into the danger zone.  Just look at her face!  I think she was worried that Andy would never come down.  Oh, but Rosie was dying to go!  It'll be a few years before she's tall enough, but she'll be ready and waiting.

Okay, at this point I was getting a little nervous myself.   You know, that moment of, "why did I let a perfect stranger fasten that harness?!  If he falls 100 feet to his doom it will be all my fault, what kind of a mother am I?!"  He had a ball, though, and I'm guessing his days of scaring me half to death are only beginning.

Let's see... what else... it rained a lot in March, good for jumping in muddy puddles.

Rosie is all for jumping in any circumstance, actually. 

And the biggest news of all (at least if you're a 9 year old boy) is that it's baseball season once again. 

Andy is playing third base for the Dodgers and he loves it more that hot wings.  And that's a lot.

 And because we love him more than a chicken wing, we are at the ball field until nearly 11:00 pm every weekend.  I truly don't understand why baseball can't be played in the light of day?!  One of life's great mysteries I suppose.

 Go Dodgers!

You might think I'm done, but I've saved our biggest news until the end.  Are you still with me?

It's really big!

Nope, we didn't buy a goat.  It's bigger than that!

No, we didn't buy two goats.  Notice how I'm stalling so that I can show you all my favorite pictures from March.  I love them all so much, I just couldn't pick.

Okay, here goes.  We are taking this circus on the road.  Packing up the big top and moving to Florida!!!

We got the news from Dave's boss on March 31.  It took at least 24 hours to sink in and when we finally began to tell our family and friends the next day, we couldn't get anyone to believe us.  It was, of course, April fools day.

 But it looks like this really is the next step in our journey.  The kids are taking their time warming up to the idea.  After all, they have made some amazing friends here in Alabama and they love their school and their teachers, their church family and being so close to their extended family.  But hey, it's always a good day to go to the beach.  Something tells me we'll have a lot of visitors, after all, we're just going to be a few hours away.

If you follow us here on our little family blog, I  will try to keep you up to date with all of the excitement this summer.  But, if you don't hear from us for a little while, know that we'll check in when we can.  We have a lot of wonderful things planned, but packing makes me a little bit of a crazy lady.  

Oh, and did I mention our bunnies are about to have babies....